


Appearances May Be Deceiving

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 10:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11102631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Rey is incredibly tired of people at the Resistance base asking to date her - she'sbusy, and not interested anyway. So she asks her best friend to pretend to be her boyfriend. Finn is happy to help, both because of his deep friendship for Rey and because he assumes the person he'sactuallyinterested doesn't like him back.Poe isnota little despondent about the fact that the man he loves is happily dating someone else. He's not. He's being very mature about all of this, really. No moping at all, no matter what Pava claims.From a prompt on the kink meme, and betaed by my ever-wonderful Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Appearances May Be Deceiving

“They won’t kriffing leave me _alone_ ,” Rey says, tugging at her hair with both hands. “It’s all, ‘Oh, Rey, let me help you with that,’ and ‘Oh, Rey, what are you doing tonight?’ and ‘Oh, Rey, I just wanted to say how much I _admire_ you’ - I don’t kriffing _care!_ I want to finish my Jedi training and turn Kylo Ren into a little heap of bloody ashes and then, maybe, someday, I’ll want a partner! But right now I am kriffing _busy!_ ” She looks up at Finn pleadingly. “Will you help me?”

“Anything,” Finn says instantly. “What do you want me to do? I don’t _think_ I can beat all of them up. The General would be mad at me.”

Rey laughs. “I can beat them up myself if I need to,” she points out. “No. I think they won’t leave me alone until I choose somebody, so will you pretend to be my -” she grins - “my cute boyfriend?”

Finn considers that, thinks briefly about his faint hope that he might someday end up with Poe, dismisses that hope just as quickly - Poe is the best pilot in the Resistance, a Commander, a man who could have his pick of anyone on base, and Finn is just the newest recruit around - and shrugs. “Sure, I’d be honored,” he says easily.

They figure the easiest way to signal this new status is for Finn to actually be allowed to _touch_ Rey - she is well known, by now, for reacting violently to anyone who tries to touch her, especially if she’s surprised - and so they walk into dinner that night with their hands clasped together, and Finn sits beside her at the table close enough that their shoulders are brushing. He’s seen enough people on base who _are_ in relationships to know how to fake it well enough: he looks at her adoringly (not that that’s hard, he _does_ adore her, just - like a sister, not a lover) and offers her a particularly good bit of fruit off his own plate and lets his fingers brush hers when she takes it.

“You lucky son of a bantha,” one of the other recruits says when Finn gets back to barracks after walking Rey to her room that night. “How did you end up with _her_?”

“She asked,” Finn says, quite honestly.

“Damn,” Finn’s bunkmate says admiringly. “I guess you earned it, though, Starkiller,” and that seems to be the general consensus: Finn is a lucky son of a bantha, but he did earn her affections with appropriate heroics, so no one’s going to give him any trouble.

So Finn eats all his meals with Rey when she’s not off doing mysterious Jedi things, and walks her to her room at night, and holds her hand in the corridors, and they go and explore D’Qar together, wandering through the forests near the base and just talking, and Finn _likes_ it, enjoys the company of his very best friend in all the galaxy, and everyone else leaves Rey (and Finn, for that matter) alone, because they’re taken - and in any case there’s no chance Poe would be interested. So it’s good. It’s all good.

*

Poe isn’t moping. Moping would imply he wasn’t getting his job done, and he _is_ , he’s doing his job just as well as he ever has, better, maybe, now that he’s not distracted by flirting with pretty people. Moping would imply he wasn’t spending time with his friends, and he _is_ , buying rounds for them after a successful training or recon run, telling bad jokes with Jess and playing sabacc with Snap and Nien and half a dozen other pilots. Moping would imply he was failing to take care of himself, and he’s doing just fine, thank you very much: he’s clean and as well-rested as you can get in a war zone, and BB-8 is clean and fully up-to-date on its maintenance and even Poe’s _room_ is clean (admittedly this is because he doesn’t have much in the way of possessions at the moment, this being a war zone, but still).

So he’s not moping.

He’s just...well, to be perfectly honest, he’s _hideously_ jealous, and kind of mad at himself about it. He was working his courage up to approach Finn - beautiful Finn, Finn with the Light shining out of him like a beacon, brave, bright-eyed, _kind_ Finn with a heart big enough for the whole galaxy - and Rey got there first. Poe can’t even be mad at Rey for winning a contest she had no idea was going on: she’s the only person Poe can think of, himself included, who actually _is_ worthy of Finn’s heart. She’s as much a beacon of the Light as Finn is, a brightly-burning star in her own right, and they’re so clearly _happy_ together. Finn smiles at her so sweetly, and Rey leans against him so easily, when she won’t trust _anyone_ else to touch her at all - Poe can’t be mad, really. He can’t even be _sad_ , because love is about wanting your loved one to be happy, right? And Finn is happy. So Poe should be happy.

He just wishes it was _him_ putting that sappy smile on Finn’s beautiful face. But he’s old enough to be mature about this, to take pleasure in the time he _does_ get to spend with Finn, in the meals they eat together when Rey is off with her teacher on some mystical Jedi errand or other, in the way Finn gravitates towards Poe anytime there’s a crowd around them, in the questions Finn asks because he knows Poe won’t judge him for not knowing things about the outside galaxy that the First Order never bothered to tell their Stormtroopers.

And if, occasionally, Poe has guilty little daydreams about what might happen if Rey wasn’t around, if Finn would have picked _Poe_ if Rey wasn’t around, well - that’s in the privacy of his own damn head, and is no one else’s business at all.

*

“Master Luke says we’re going to be going away,” Rey says miserably, curling up against Finn’s chest. She’s learned, over the last few months of their fake relationship, that she actually likes being touched, as long as it’s someone she trusts touching her - which, at this point, is mostly Finn, but still. Finn is warm and his heartbeat is a steady, reassuring thud beneath her ear. “For _months_. We’re taking the _Falcon_ and we might not be back for - up to a couple of years, he said.”

“You can still send messages, right?” Finn asks anxiously. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Yeah, we can send messages - Master Luke says he can encrypt them well enough that they won’t be a danger. And I know we _need_ to go - there’s things we need to do, I can feel them. But I don’t want to.”

“I’d come if I could,” Finn says quietly. “But -”

“You just made lieutenant; I can’t ask you to _leave_ ,” Rey says. “And in any case it’s going to be all Force-ghosts and ‘do or do not, there is no try’ and Master Luke being kriffing _inscrutable_ at me. You’d be miserable.”

“I’ll send messages every week,” Finn promises. “And you send messages back, and come visit anytime you can talk Master Luke into it. Hell, send me Force-visions if you can. We’ll be alright.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rey says, and sighs, then suddenly sits up, grinning. “Hey, if I’m leaving, you don’t have to be my fake boyfriend anymore! You could go ask Poe out!”

Finn laughs. “I mean, I could, but no,” he says. “Poe’s not interested in me.”

“Finn, you are really kind of blind,” Rey says, shaking her head. “Bet you three days’ dessert that as soon as I’m gone - well, no, once I’ve been gone a little while and you’re not brokenhearted about it - Poe will ask you out.”

“And how are you going to get me those desserts when you’re off with Master Luke?” Finn asks, grinning.

“I will kriffing _mail_ them,” Rey says. “You should be asking how you’re going to get your desserts to _me_.”

Finn snorts. “If I _do_ end up owing you desserts, I’ll figure out a way,” he promises.

“Deal,” Rey says, and she and Finn shake on it, laughing.

*

Poe is admittedly sort of baffled by Finn’s reaction when Rey leaves. Oh, Finn looks sort of _wistful_ , and he clearly misses her, but it’s not the sort of broken-hearted pining that Poe was honestly anticipating. Maybe they agreed to try a long-distance relationship? Actually, that’s probably it.

But it would be a very supportive, friendly thing to do to _ask_ , right?

So Poe finds a spot beside Finn at dinner and chats with him for a while, and finally finds a place to slide in a subtle - well, arguably subtle - well, okay, really not subtle question about Rey. Finn blinks at Poe for a moment, and then he starts to grin.

“She’s fine, and so am I,” he says. “We weren’t ever really dating, you know.”

“What,” says Poe, so astonished he can’t even make it a question.

“People kept asking her out, and she was getting really irritated with having to tell them no all the time,” Finn explains. “So she asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend so they’d leave her alone, and it worked. But presumably she won’t have that trouble while she’s off doing mysterious Jedi stuff, so that’s over now.”

Poe suspects he is gaping unattractively, but _really_ , how is he supposed to respond to something like that? “You - she - but -” he sputters, and then takes a deep breath and a long drink of his sweetapple juice and tries desperately to rediscover coherency. “You looked really happy together,” he says at last.

“She’s my best friend,” Finn says calmly. “I adore her. Just -” he waves a hand. “What’s that phrase Jess used? Not in a pantsfeelings way.”

“...I need to have a talk with Jess about corrupting the newbies,” Poe says weakly.

Finn laughs. “It’s a good phrase!” he says cheerfully. “Anyway. Why do you ask?” There’s a tilt to his smile that makes Poe think, suddenly, that he knows _exactly_ why Poe is asking about his relationship, and - stars and _glory_ \- that he likes it.

Poe throws caution to the winds. Honesty has always worked better with Finn anyhow. “Because I’ve been pining over you for months, buddy,” he says. “I don’t suppose you’d like to - ah -”

Finn’s smile gets wider. “Poe, will you be my boyfriend?” he asks.

“Yes,” Poe says immediately. “Kriff, yes, I - _yes_.”

Finn is laughing at him, which is completely fair. “Alright,” Finn says. “Then the first thing I need you to do, _boyfriend_ , is help me figure out how to send a pack of desserts to Rey, because she bet me three days’ dessert you wanted to be my boyfriend and I didn’t believe her.”

Poe can’t help laughing. “Buddy, I will _bake_ her a cake, and figure out how to get it to her, too,” he says, and reaches across the table to take Finn’s hand. Finn’s fingers are warm, and he looks absolutely delighted as he curls them around Poe’s. “We’re gonna do this,” he says quietly, and Finn’s smile is everything Poe’s ever wanted.

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Yeah, we are.”

*

Rey opens the package, frowning. What in the _galaxy_ was so important that Finn figured out how to send it all the way out _here_? She tears the last of the wrapping off and pries the box open, and starts to laugh.

There’s a cake, sealed neatly in a tin, with _You Were Right_ iced carefully across the top, and next to it, a small holo, clearly a candid shot - Rey would wager quite a lot it’s from BB-8’s little camera - of Finn and Poe, kissing.

Master Luke pokes his head into the main room, raising an eyebrow. “Cake?” he asks, as Rey lifts the tin out of the packaging.

“ _My_ cake,” Rey says. “I won it fair and square.” She tucks the holo away carefully in her tunic pocket, where it won’t get lost. “And now I get to tell Finn I told him so, the next time we see him.”

“...Good to know,” Master Luke says, and retreats into the cockpit again, and Rey cuts herself a slice of cake and enjoys every sticky-sweet bite. It tastes like victory.

**Author's Note:**

> I am imaginarygolux on tumblr - drop on by!


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